


All Things Sacred

by Burningchaos



Category: Stargate - All Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-22
Updated: 2007-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-03 14:39:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1071633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burningchaos/pseuds/Burningchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the 10_cliche_fics prompt Better late than never</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Things Sacred

People make plans while the God(s) laugh, Rodney had heard that all his life, except he didn’t believe in God(s), Goddesses, Allah, Buddha or any other higher powers. If he could touch it, see it feel it, if there was tangible proof then he would have but it was all based on faith. Faith, he didn’t know what the hell that meant. 

Then he went to Atlantis. 

Suddenly, he had faith in Sheppard to lead them and keep him safe. He had faith in Elizabeth’s leadership. There were times when he even had faith in himself to save the city’s collective ass from the imminent doom of the moment. 

But faith quickly gained is also quickly lost. 

Rodney learned that lesson the hard way. He learned that friendships were as elusive as faith. So was trust. In fact those three things were as scared as the Christian’s holy trinity. Where one went the others followed. 

Every person he’d let in, every person he’d had ‘faith’ in let him down, including himself. He watched friends die because he failed; he lost friends for the same reason. 

In the end all Atlantis had taught him was he was right to not believe in anything he didn’t have scientific proof for. 

This wasn’t the plan he’d had for his life. He had never expected to be in another galaxy, let alone devising ways to destroy aliens that gave him nightmares that even the Go’ auld never inspired. 

When he found the one perfect option, and oh it would have been the answer to everything, all those intangible things he’d found were swiftly taken away. 

Because he failed.

Just once, but apparently that was all it took. He should have remembered that lesson. Samantha Carter had taught him that. He pissed her off, failed in her view and ended up at the ends of the fucking earth. 

So he returned to Earth. He pulled his failure around him like a cloak. He held it close, because honestly who hadn’t failed, fucked up or done something so incredibly wrong that they could cast proverbial stones at him. 

He did his work, it wasn’t as challenging. It wasn’t as rewarding, but hey it was still something he loved. It was all he had. 

It was all he ever had.

When John, Elizabeth and the other realized they needed him still and came to apologize it was too late. And they mentioned the forbidden words…trust, faith and friendship. They offered them up as if those things were the golden ring he should grasp tightly to his chest and never let go off. 

But he didn’t. 

He sent them away and when the SGC tried to force him to return to the city he still saw in his dreams he in turn threatened them. After all, he was a valuable commodity and despite what the military thought they didn’t own him. 

He didn’t back down, but they did. A battle won, a battle lost, a war still being fought but now there was a cease fire. 

Mindless, uninspired days bled into one another. Monotonous, tedious…pick any word you want he was fading into a shell of the man he’d dreamed of being. 

But during all this there was someone desperately trying to reach him. Trying to get in, battering at his well constructed and heavily patched walls. Someone who was more obstinate and stubborn then Rodney had given him credit for. A man Rodney had written off as a John clone, and someone who was a waste of his time. 

Cameron Mitchell had shown up one day and just kept coming back. Lame excuses, a lunch tray, something ‘neat’ he’d found off world he used everyone in the book and invented more when those ran out. 

One day Mitchell didn’t show up after he returned off world and for the first time in years Rodney felt something. Panic, worry, concern… pick the word you want it was all there and amidst that there was something else. Something that he’d never expected. So he crawled out of the hole he called an office and asked where the Colonel was. 

The infirmary. Of course. 

Rodney walked calmly despite the urge to run. He stepped into the room and saw Cameron lying on a bed, pale, bandaged and wearing a still slightly damp cast. He walked over to where Cameron lay and sat in the chair next to him and waited. 

He waited for three days. 

When Cameron opened his eyes they instantly brightened and a weak, tired smile covered his face.

In that moment, for no reason that unexpected feeling, the one the he’d forgotten followed that holy trinity of emotions he’d let go needed to be voiced.

He reached out carefully, took Cameron’s hand in his and took a shaky fear filled breath. “I won’t run any more. I can’t.”

“Well it’s about damn time.”


End file.
